Published by an old curmudgeon who came to America in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and proudly served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is a former law enforcement officer and a retired professor of criminal justice who, in 1970, founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. BarkGrowlBite refuses to be politically correct.
(Copyrighted articles are reproduced in accordance with the copyright laws of the U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.)

Thursday, March 31, 2011

In an op-ed published in the March 30 issue of Jewish World Review, Jeff Jacoby was highly critical of Obama for not supporting the Syrians that are rebelling against Bashar al-Assad who is every bit the tyrant Gadhafi is. Here are some excerpts from Jacoby’s ‘Shaking The House That Assad Built’:

If the United States has good reason to support the popular revolt in Libya -- and President Obama argued Monday night that there is "an important strategic interest in preventing [Moammar] Qaddafi from overrunning those who oppose him" -- it has considerably more reason to do so in Syria. If it made sense to speed the departure of Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, accelerating the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad should be an even higher priority.

At a moment like this, the Obama administration should be taking every reasonable step to encourage the Syrian uprising and undermine the regime. In his remarks on Libya the other night, the president cheered "the fact that history is on the move in the Middle East and North Africa," and promised (in words reminiscent of his predecessor) that "wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States."

If Obama is serious, why has there been no White House denunciation of the murder of protesters by Syrian security forces? Why haven't US officials publicly exhorted the Security Council and the Arab League to take as strong a stand against Assad as they did against Qaddafi? Why hasn't the president ordered Ambassador Robert Ford, the new US envoy to Syria, to demonstrate American solidarity with the demonstrators by traveling to Daraa, where dozens of them have been killed, and demanding an international investigation?

Rather than intensify the pressure on a regime that is every bit as odious as Qaddafi's, and that arguably has more American blood on its hands that any other government in the Arab world, the Obama administration is bending over backward to reassure Assad. On the Sunday talk shows, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually gave Assad her seal of approval. "Members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer," she said. Reformer! Her characterization would be hilarious if it weren't so sickeningly perverse.

Assad is no reformer. He is a totalitarian criminal and an enemy of the United States, and his downfall should be an explicit American aim. Surely we owe the tens of thousands of Syrians bravely confronting their vicious government at least the same encouragement we gave Mubarak's opponents in Egypt. All Americans, from the White House down, should be cheering as Syria's people shake the House That Assad Built. Nothing could be more salutary than to see that awful, bloodstained dungeon come tumbling down at last.

Mexicans are in a funk over their president, and a majority of them think that he's losing control of the country, an opinion poll released Tuesday found.

Six out of 10 Mexicans think that organized crime gangs are getting the upper hand in the war that President Felipe Calderon launched against drug trafficking when he came to office in late 2006, the poll by Demotecnia found.

The poll may augur a change in the country's approach to its huge drug-trafficking problem when a new administration takes over after elections next year.

Calderon, 48, is in the fifth and defining year of a six-year presidential term. His National Action Party is struggling to find a suitable candidate for the 2012 presidential elections - Mexico's presidents serve only one term - and Calderon recently suggested that the party should look outside its ranks for a candidate.

While the army-backed offensive that Calderon launched when he took office has disrupted drug gangs and netted a handful of drug barons, it's coincided with a rising death toll. Last year, 15,273 Mexicans were killed, a spike over the 9,600 killed a year earlier. In total, more than 35,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon took office.

In a telephone poll of 500 Mexicans conducted Saturday, Demotecnia found that 59 percent of respondents said the country was as bad off or worse off than it was when Calderon took office.

Asked who's gaining the upper hand in the war against narcotics cartels, 59 percent also said drug traffickers were winning, the Mexico City polling group said.

In another question, respondents were asked whether Calderon had a firm grip on the reins of the country or matters were falling out of his control. Sixty-seven percent picked the latter option.

"The drug war has not worked out well, according to the poll," De las Heras said in a telephone interview. "He has put all his political capital into this, and the perception at least, maybe not the reality, is that it is going very badly. The majority of people are not satisfied."

Even President Barack Obama has been drawn into Calderon's woes. On March 19, he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, whom Calderon had publicly flayed over leaked diplomatic cables that questioned whether Mexico's strategy on the cartels was working.

Obama, on a stop in nearby El Salvador on March 22, told CNN en Espanol that U.S.-Mexican cooperation was "very robust and very effective."

But he added: "The challenge is that the drug cartels have gotten stronger and President Calderon rightly feels frustrated."

De las Heras said part of the gloom among Mexicans was that few better strategies were apparent.

"The sense is that we're in a tunnel where it is hard to see the other side," she said.

The sheriff’s deputy who was attacked by a cow died from his injuries on Monday at a hospital in Tyler, Texas.

If you recall, on March 24, Deputy Robert Britton responded to a call of a cow having been hit by a motor vehicle. The cow charged at him while he was directing traffic at the scene. He was flipped up in the air and landed on his head. The cow continued to attack the deputy while he laid motionless on the ground. He was taken to a Tyler hospital where he remained in critical condition until he passed away.

After more than 20 years in prison, justice is finally getting done as this lovable looking monster now meets her maker

DOROTHEA PUENTE, SACRAMENTO’S INFAMOUS KILLER DIESBy Sam Stanton

The Sacramento BeeMarch 27, 2011

Dorothea Puente, the notorious F Street landlady convicted of killing her tenants and burying them in her backyard, died Sunday, state corrections officials said.

Puente, 82, had been seriously ill for months, and was transferred from the Central California Women's Facility near Chowchilla to an outside hospital in September 2010.

Even in a city with no shortage of infamous and gruesome murders, the Puente case stands out.

She was a sweet-looking, grandmotherly woman who ran a boarding house out of a rented two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street.

Puente began the business in 1980, renting out the top floor of the home, but she was sent to prison for three years for drugging her elderly tenants and stealing checks from them.

She was back in business by 1985, renting the entire house and offering rooms to elderly and disabled residents, some of whom she met while cruising bars in the area.

The case broke open in 1988, after social worker Judy Moise finally convinced police something was wrong at the boardinghouse. Moise, who worked for Volunteers of America, had referred Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a 51-year-old mentally impaired homeless man, to stay at the boardinghouse, where Puente was known for lavishing her tenants with gifts and homecooked meals.

Montoya disappeared from the home after a few months, and Moise filed a missing persons report on Nov. 7, 1988, with Sacramento police. An officer went to the home to question Puente, and during the course of his visit a tenant slipped him a note that said Puente had asked him to lie.

Four days later homicide detectives John Cabrera and Terry Brown showed up at the house with Puente's federal parole agent, Jim Wilson, and some shovels. They began digging in the backyard and Cabrera unearthed what he thought was a tree root. It turned out to be a leg bone belonging to 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. Eventually, seven bodies would be unearthed from the grounds of the home.

But on the second day of digging, as police were discovering a second body, Puente strolled away from the home wearing a red coat, purple high-heeled shoes and carrying $3,000 in cash. She took two cab rides to Stockton, then went to Los Angeles as embarrassed police launched a nationwide search.

A few days later, Puente was recognized in a Los Angeles bar and arrested, and police detectives who had hitched a ride on a chartered jet from Sacramento television station KCRA returned with her in custody. During the flight, Channel 3's legendary police reporter Mike Boyd scored an interview with her, and she declared, "I have not killed anyone."

A jury would later disagree. Puente was charged with nine murders and faced trial in Monterey County because of the massive publicity over the case in Sacramento. Evidence would show she drugged her tenants and had cashed at least 60 government assistance checks belonging to them. During nearly five months of trial that included 156 witnesses, more than 3,100 exhibits and 22,000 pages of transcripts, she was convicted in three of the murders and sentenced to life. She never took the stand, and was sent to the prison in Chowchilla.

The case generated worldwide attention at the time and remains a subject of fascination. The court files from the case are stored at the Center for Sacramento History, and the Mansion Flats home on F Street was sold at auction last year to a Georgetown couple for $215,000.

Barbara Holmes and Tom Williams said at the time that they were aware of the home's history, but were not concerned.

Blondes will probably not appreciate these jokes, but us guys sure do.

DISNEYLAND’S GONE

Two blondes were going to Disneyland. They were driving on the Interstate when they saw the sign that said Disneyland LEFT. They started crying and turned around to go back home.

FLORIDA OR THE MOON?

Two blondes living in Oklahoma were sitting on a bench talking, and one blonde says to the other, 'Which do you think is farther away... Florida or the moon?'

The other blonde turns and says 'Helloooooooooo, can you see Florida ?????'

CAR TROUBLE

A blonde pushes her BMW into a gas station. She tells the mechanic it died. After he works on it for a few minutes, it is idling smoothly.

She says, 'What's the story?'

He replies, 'Just crap in the carburetor'

She asks, 'How often do I have to do that?'

SPEEDING TICKET

A police officer stops a blonde for speeding and asks her very nicely if he could see her license.

She replied in a huff, 'I wish you guys would get your act together. Just yesterday you take away my license and then today you expect me to show it to you!'

OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER

There's this blonde out for a walk. She comes to a river and sees another blonde on the opposite bank 'Yoo-hoo!' she shouts, 'How can I get to the other side?'

The second blonde looks up the river then down the river and shouts back, 'You ARE on the other side.'

AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE

A gorgeous young redhead goes into the doctor's office and said that her body hurt wherever she touched it.

'Impossible!' says the doctor.. 'Show me.'

The redhead took her finger, pushed on her left shoulder and screamed, then she pushed her elbow and screamed even more. She pushed her knee and screamed; likewise she pushed her ankle and screamed.. Everywhere she touched made her scream.

The doctor said, 'You're not really a redhead, are you?

'Well, no' she said, 'I'm actually a blonde.'

'I thought so,' the doctor said, 'Your finger is broken.'

KNITTING

A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway. Glancing at the car, he was astounded to see that the blonde behind the wheel was knitting!

Realizing that she was oblivious to his flashing lights and siren, the trooper cranked down his window, turnedon his bullhorn and yelled, 'PULL OVER!'

'NO!' the blonde yelled back, 'IT'S A SCARF!'

IN A VACUUM

A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night... It was her turn. She rolled the dice and she landed on Science & Nature.

Her question was, 'If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it?'

She thought for a time and then asked, 'Is it on or off?'

ROLEX AND TIMEX

A young lady was visiting her blonde friend, who had acquired two new dogs, and asked her what their names were.

The blonde responded by saying that one was named Rolex and one was named Timex.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

With the proliferation of heroin, cocaine and meth, you would think the Drug Enforcement Administration had better things to do than to seize Georgia’s supply of a key execution drug because the state may have obtained it on the black market.

It is no secret that there has been a severe shortage of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs making up a lethal-injection cocktail, since the sole U.S. manufacturer stopped making it. The states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia and Tennessee have turned to English suppliers for the drug.

On March 15, the DEA seized Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental that had been obtained from Link Pharmaceuticals. Lawyers representing death row inmates claim Link is a British "fly-by-night" supplier of the lethal injection drug.

It appears that Georgia failed to register sodium thiopental for importation with the DEA.

According to a DEA spokesman, "We had questions about how the drug was imported to the U.S. There were concerns."

The DEA seems to have lost it’s way. The DEA should exercise its enforcement activities exclusively with the importation, manufacture and distribution of heroin, cocaine, meth and other illegal drugs.

It is really touching that the DEA is concerned about the possibility that sodium thiopental imported for use in executions of cold blooded killers may not be of the purest quality. Oh my God, heaven forbid!

I cannot fathom that the DEA took it upon itself to seize Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental. It must have been ordered to do so by higher-ups in the Justice Department - higher-ups with a liberal anti-death penalty ideation.

It took the brutal butchering of an Israeli family - including three little children - for Senators to go after the Obama administration for its indifference to the perpetual incitement by the Palestinians against the Jewish state. The schools of the Palestinian Authority teach hatred of Jews and glorify suicide bombings, as does the governmant controlled media and the Imams from their mosques.

The incitement has been going on unabated because, other than a few lukewarm admonishments, the international community and the Obama administration have failed to take any concrete steps against the Palestinians for inciting their people against Jews and against Israel. Thus the bipartisan group of 27 senators are a day late and a dollar short, but that still beats Obama and Clinton’s indifference by a country mile.

US SENATORS PRESS CLINTON ON ANTI-ISRAEL ‘INCITEMENT’

The Straits TimesMarch 30, 2011

WASHINGTON - TWENTY-SEVEN US senators pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday to make clear to Palestinian leaders that any incitement to violence against Israel or Jews is 'not tolerable.'

'We would like to know what specific steps you are taking to press for an end to this dangerous incitement,' the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Mrs Clinton urging action after the grisly stabbing slayings of a family of five Israelis, including three children.

'The Itamar massacre was a sobering reminder that words matter, and that Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israel can lead to violence and terror,' the group, which included Democrats and Republicans, said in their message.

'We urge you to redouble your efforts to impress upon the Palestinian leadership that continuing to condone incitement is not tolerable. We also urge you to consider focusing adequate training and educational programs in the West Bank and Gaza that promote peaceful coexistence with Israel,' they said.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has denounced the early March attack at the Itamar settlement in the West Bank near the northern city of Nablus as 'abominable, inhuman and immoral.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for creating an atmosphere that led to the killings - widely believed to have been carried out by Palestinians - and Mr Abbas has flatly rejected the charge. -- AFP

Here is a good example of why the term ‘non-violent offender’ is meaningless. Any non-violent individual can turn violent at any moment. Correctional authorities should not bet the public’s safety on the up-to-now benign behavior of a prison inmate.

Here we have a ‘harmless’ thief who shot two people to death and wounded a third. Non-violent indeed!

GOLD STAR PAROLEE SHOOTS THREE IN ACAMPOBy Bob Walsh

PACOVILLA Corrections blogMarch 26, 2011

A man on parole for petty theft with a prior [theft] shot and killed two people and wounded a third yesterday near Homestead and Jahant Roads in Acampo. He fled the scene, but crashed while being chased by police and is now in custody.

The parolee, Howard D. Smith, 40 (other ages quoted in various media outlets), had been corresponding with a woman who lived at the address on Homestead. He appears to have gone to the house to kill the woman’s current boyfriend, who was not at home at the time. He did shoot and kill an 91-year old man who lived in a separate house on the property, as well as shooting two other people who are believed to be related to the 91-year old. One of those other victims also died, the third is likely to survive.

I don’t see what everybody is getting so worked up about. Petty theft with a prior is a non-serious, non-violent offense. I’m surprised he wasn’t on NRP (non-revokable parole). He had been out on parole about a month, maybe a tad less, from an earlier revocation on his petty theft beef.

We were upset to see Harris County Criminal Court Judge John Clinton get pilloried by godless ACLU-types who had problems with him offering defendants the option of writing a book report on a "Scripture-based workbook."

After some criminal defense attorneys, and the ACLU's Texas chapter, alleged that Clinton's plan violated the Constitution, the judge dropped the option. Clinton explained his thinking to KHOU: "I'm just trying to think outside the box. Trying to mold the punishment to help these individuals, instead of set them up to fail."

Co-authored by a Christian counselor and a doctor of divinity, The Heart of the Problem has tests that allow readers to "mark the level at which you have allowed God to change your heart." These levels are measured on a point system of 0-10, with "sin controlled" on the low end and "spirit controlled" on the high. (There's also a chapter on "Carnality," which sadly wasn't available for preview on Amazon.com.)

According to KHOU, "Clinton said if any of the defendants who were sentenced to reading the book would like to choose something else, they are welcome to do so." Therefore, Hair Balls would like to suggest some books that we have relied on to show us the light in dark times.

You might say, "There's no way a book about criminal activity can be a positive influence on criminals," but then you'd just be a triflin' ho -- or what Pimpin' Ken calls a "Suzy Choosy." Look, in 192 pages, Mr. Ken offers lessons similar to those in ‘The Heart of the Problem’ -- like the salient points in Law 16, "Give Motivation and Inspiration," which segues into Law 17, "Get You a Bottom Bitch." Ken's financial advice on turning "ho ends into dividends" is priceless; and there's simply no greater universal life lesson than Law 1, "Purse First, Ass Last." This is a book that can turn your life around.

No doubt a lot of the defendants who've found themselves before Judge Clinton have had drug problems. What better way to steer them on a path to recovery than a book about anthropomorphic horses with monkeys on their backs? We're guessing that, like Latawnya, not every drinkin' and druggin' defendant was born a bad seed. They just succumbed to peer pressure at some point.

Although Latawnya's sisters Daisy and Latoya resisted the urge to fall in with a bunch of equine delinquents one day, Latawnya was not so strong. Gibson writes: "So when Latawnya, the naughty horse, saw Connie smoking drugs and drinking, Latawnya started smoking drugs and drinking too." But fortunately, Latawnya had family looking out for her. Her sister Daisy swiftly "slapped the alcohol and drugs out of Tawnya's hoof," and soon Latawnya "found out that smoking and drinking were not as good or as easy as they looked when Connie was smoking drugs and drinking." It's a book that not only teaches a valuable lesson, but warms your heart.

3. ‘Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders’ by Vincent Bugliosi

This true-crime classic shows you how it's done. Whatever piddling misdemeanors brought these defendants to Judge Clinton's court pale in comparison to a home nvasion that involves the writing on the walls in a victim's blood and the pre-slaughter utterance of the phrase "I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business." If nothing else, ‘Helter Skelter’ can open up a small-time scofflaw's eyes to the full spectrum of deviant behavior. It's ambition in book form.

2. ‘The Story of O’ by Pauline Reage

You can't commit any more crime if you're too busy spankin' it.

1. ‘The Goose Is Loose’ by Rich "Goose" Gossage

The Goose says: "The worst thing any player can do is take the game home and mentally replay it over and over."

The Goose says: "Do what you do for love, not money, and do it with great passion."

The Goose says: "Being a closer on a baseball team is like working a high wire without a net. There's no margin for error."

The Goose will show you the way. He will set you free. The Goose will give you what you've been missing. More than any other book, The Goose Is Loose will help you get to the heart of the problem.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The raining down of rockets and mortar shells on Israel, the bombing of a Jerusalem bus stop and the brutal butchering in an Israeli settlement of a mother, father and their three little children - all perpetrated by Palestinians - are minor incidents that should be ignored?

Are the media types who spew out this sort of shit for real? As far as the liberal media is concerned, and much of the international community as well, any time the Israelis are attacked by the Palestinians, it is the Palestinians that are the victims.

EXCUUUSSEEE MEEEEEE!By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen

politicalmavens.comMarch 28, 2011

In the news this week, as journalists around the imploding Middle East are being detained, beaten, raped and shot at, a producer for Dan Rather complained to the Associated Press that his crew was “harassed and humiliated” by Israeli security officials.

The guy says crew members “were forced to drop their pants for a strip search before seeing an Israeli Cabinet minister.”

The A.P., in an apparent attempt to create some sort of parity between how security in Israel and in the Arab world treat journalists (not to mention others), wrote that these heinous allegations were “the latest in a swelling list of complaints about how Israeli security officials treat the foreign media.”

So, maybe Israeli security officials are overly cautious or maybe they’ve copped a little bit of an attitude, which possibly can be partially explained by stuff like this headline also from this week:

“Israel violence complicates Gates’ call for peace.”

This A.P. story was about U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ trip to Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories in which he said, in light of escalating violence against it, the Jewish state has the unequivocal right to self-defense.

That is not, however, how the A.P. writer presented the story, as one might guess from the headline.

Rather than put the focus on the Jews’ right to defend themselves against a surge of rocket fire into populated areas, the murders in their home of a mother and father and three of their young children and the deadly bombing of a busy Jerusalem bus-stop at rush hour, the writer suggests these are minor incidents best ignored. And she tries, by her wording, to place prospects for calming the Arab world’s savages at Israel’s feet.

“While Gates condemned the bombing of a bus-stop in Jerusalem and said Israel has the right to defend itself, he sought to use his visit to the region to try and convince both sides that negotiating peace is a way to get ahead of the wave of populist uprisings sweeping the region,” she wrote.

It isn’t until near the bottom of the story that the writer notes that during a news conference with Gates, Ehud Barak made clear that Israel must respond when its citizens are targets of indiscriminate attacks. “And he said that while his country is determined to bring tranquility back to the region, it can’t be done ‘in this tough neighborhood’ without the use of force from time to time,” she wrote.

“Gates agreed that no sovereign state can tolerate having rockets fired at its people,” she was forced to concede, “But, he added that ‘we don’t want to do anything that allows extremists or others to divert the narrative of reform that’s going on in virtually all the countries of the region.’”

I read, from the way this is written, that the writer thinks, or at least wants us to think Gates thinks, that if the Jews don’t allow themselves to be violently victimized by the barbarians at her gates, the “reformers” currently tearing apart the Arab world will be “hijacked” by extremists.

Don’t look now, but I have a feeling it’s those very extremists behind most of what’s going on over there, and even if a percentage of protesters really are in it to create positive change, those behind the scenes – read Iran – have a completely different agenda.

And then, by way of background, the writer informs us that the “latest spike in attacks began Wednesday with a bus-stop bombing in Jerusalem, followed by Israeli strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza,” completely failing to note the murders of the Fogel family a couple of weeks ago and the barrage of rocket attacks in southern Israel since then.

Those things didn’t count, I guess.

The Manson-like slaughter of that family, which included the stabbing and throat slashing of 3-month-old girl and a toddler, barely made the news, as opposed to the accidental killing of several Palestinian family members when a military reprisal went off course.

That was all over the news.

While the outcome of each was the same – dead civilians – the difference between these events, of course, is intent.

The Israelis apologized for their terrible mistake while the Palestinians handed out candy in congratulations for a “heroic operation.”

And in the media’s presentation in nearly every case, if they were mentioned at all, the Fogel family was reduced to the description, “settlers,” while the Palestinian casualties were described in much more human terms.

And this is not an isolated case.

So, excuse them if the Israelis get a little annoyed with the international media sometimes.

There are no tears in Robert Salyer's dojo. Neither does this 40-year-old Corpus Christi ninja tolerate domestic disturbances involving his stepdaughter and her boyfriend.

Police there say that Salyer brought to a close a squabble between the two lovebirds -- both of whom live in the Nueces County home with Salyer -- by slicing off a piece of the 25-year-old boyfriend's lip with a samurai sword.

Police arrived last Thursday to find Salyer and the blood-covered boyfriend shouting in the front yard. The younger man told police that he had been arguing with his girlfriend in their bedroom when Salyer asked him to leave.

According to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, when the boyfriend refused, Salyer kicked in the door, and hi-ya!, cold Tamahagane steel flashed through the warm Coastal Bend night. To perdition went some of the lip that had been shattering the peace of Robert Salyer's nocturnal warrior meditations.

Other versions have it that the young man did leave the premises and then returned and kicked in the door, thus precipitating the kitana lip-ectomy. Which version is true and correct would seem to be key in deciding if Salyer can invoke the dojo doctrine. After all, a ninja's home is his castle same as anybody else.

At any rate, Salyer-san was charged at the scene with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The boyfriend refused treatment at the scene and was cut loose. Salyer has a six-year-old conviction for domestic violence for which he served 30 days in Nueces County Jail, according to online records.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Cois, an old friend, and I have been discussing our experiences with discrimination in this country. We talked mainly about the treatment of blacks, as well as my experiences with anti-Semitism. From my point of view, it mainly boils down to this: Minorities that continually see themselves as victims will not rid themselves of the misery in their lives.

I was fortunate in that I only spent a few years in New York as a young boy. Why? Because I found out quickly that there was a lot of anti-Semitism, and it came mostly from blacks. Even today, blacks constitute the largest group of anti-Semites in this country, despite the fact that liberal Jews were very prominent in the struggle of blacks for civil rights. But there was plenty of white anti-Semitism too. I personally saw several apartment complexes with signs that read: NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED. Banks (unless they were Jewish owned) and insurance companies in New York refused to hire any Jews.

In the fifties, after I returned to live in New York, I still experienced some anti-Semitism. An old army buddy took me to a basketball game at Madison Square Garden between St. John’s University and City College of New York. Because he was a graduate of St. John’s, I had the misfortune of sitting in the midst of SJU fans, with many shouting ‘kill those damn Jews’ and ‘kill the kikes.’ (CCNY’s basketball team was representative of the school’s large Jewish enrollment.)

Around the same time, Irving Cohen asked me to look after Chief Gordon House, a good lightweight fighter that he managed. Irving wanted me to make sure that Gordon House, an Indian from Oklahoma and Texas, did not get drunk while he was in New York, a Herculean task for me. As we were passing by an Irish bar near Times Square, the Chief insisted we stop by for some beer. I agreed only on the condition that we would have just one beer.

At the bar he told the bartender, ‘Draw two for my friend K… and me.' The bartender ordered us out, shouting that ‘We don’t serve any God damn fucking Jews in here!’ Gordon House instantly grabbed the bartender, dragged him across the bar and proceeded to beat the supreme shit out of him. If I hadn’t used all my strength to pull him off, he might have killed the asshole. The Chief was not pissed because we were going to be thrown out – he was pissed because he felt bad for me.

On the other hand, I never experienced any anti-Semitism during the years I spent in Ardmore, Oklahoma and Marshall, Texas. I think that was because there were only a few Jews in those small towns. Daube’s Department Store, the most prominent business in Ardmore, was Jewish owned. My father worked there as a shoe salesman. In Marshall, where I went to high school, Louis Kariel was mayor for years and years. He was the Jewish owner of the small shoe store where my father worked.

I did experience some anti-Semitism when I lived in Riverside. The San Bernardino police chief and I were close buddies. He proposed me for membership in the San Bernardino Elks Lodge, but they told him no way because the lodge did not accept any Jews. (Later the Riverside Elks Lodge accepted me after a couple of FBI agent friends proposed me for membership.)

And a doctor friend invited my wife and me to spend one weekend with him and his wife at an exclusive members-only resort he belonged to near Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead. Several days later he had to take back the invitation. Apologizing, he told me that all members had to submit the name and background of any proposed guests to the resort's trustees for approval. He was told that I had a Jewish name and that no Jews were allowed on the grounds of the lodge. (My friend promptly withdrew his family membership.)

One of the problems for Jews is that we are all perceived to have gotten rich at the expense of the disadvantaged. That is at the root of black anti-Semitism. While wealthy Jews get a lot of publicity - leaving the impression that all Jews are rich - the majority of Jews are not rich and quite a few actually live below the poverty line. As for those members of that exclusive lodge near Big Bear, they were among the wealthy gentiles who regard Jews as an inferior race.

After coming to the good old USA, my father worked hard to provide our family with food, clothing and shelter, but he never made more than a modest income. As for my wife and me, we are far from being rich.

The reason many Jews have done well in this country is because Jewish families have traditionally emphasized the importance of an education, something blacks have failed miserably to do. And blacks have been victimized as much by those two poverty pimps, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as they have been by whites and the white power structure.

I've known plenty of blacks who were smart, hardworking and excelled in schools and colleges, as well as in their chosen professions. It's a shame that bigots choose to latch onto negative stereotypes instead of onto the achievements of individuals within any distinctive group.

It was my experience that there was just as much, if not more, discrimination against blacks in many parts of the North as in the South. While discrimination against blacks was open for all to see in the South, it was more or less hidden in the North.

It is sad that so many blacks live in poverty, but they have only themselves to blame, not whites. Instead of emphasizing education and good behavior for their kids, many tend to spend their energy on blaming everyone but themselves for their predicament. And they get plenty of help there from Jackson and Sharpton. That's why they can't break the cycle of poverty.

My friend Cois says, ‘Hate and bad attitudes are passed on from one generation to the next. You have seen it and so have I. Living situations, especially in the inner city or segregated areas where there is no father involved and the mother has kids from 4 or 5 different fathers. The kids are on the street setting up their own way of life and it's almost never good.’

Cois adds, ‘Look at Sendai, Japan. No riots, no screaming and pushing to get water. no blaming someone else for their problems. Within a few years, it will be rebuilt and look better than before. Good examples are Hiroshima and Nagasaki and even Tokyo where most of it burned down during WWII.’

I would suggest that we all take a good look at the Vietnamese in this country. They came here unable to speak English and without a pot to pee in. Vietnamese kids quickly learned to speak English and their parents taught them the value of an education. Many have excelled in our public schools and in our colleges and universities. Even those without an education have worked their asses off at all hours of the day and night - all members of the family contributing - to succeed in various businesses.

And what have blacks learned from the Vietnamese? Nothing! Instead they accuse Vietnamese and Korean owned businesses in black neighborhoods of exploiting the ‘brothers and sisters’ by overcharging them for inferior merchandize, the same accusations they have made for years against Jewish owned businesses in their neighborhoods.

If blacks would only follow the example of the Vietnamese, their lives in this country would get a whole lot better.

Yesterday’s CBS Sunday Morning showed a video clip of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton being interviewed during a CBS 60 Minutes segment in 1970. CBS news correspondent Charles Collingwood asked Taylor about her 17-year-old son growing up in the cultural revolution with its rampant use of drugs.

Wen asked about marijuana, Taylor said something like, “How can I tell him not to use pot, which I have, when I drink martinis.”

If I had been there, I could have easily told her that, unless your are underage, drinking a martini is not against the law but the possession and use of marijuana is against the law no matter what age you are.

The proponents of pot have long accused those of us who support the laws against marijuana of being a bunch of hypocrites because we consume alcoholic beverages. That charge is a bunch of crap! They sound off that pot smokers are of a new generation while those of us who drink are of the old generation. And to justify their use, they keep telling us that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. Another load of crap!

I know that many, if not most people believe the laws against marijuana are bad laws, but have any of the pot heads and defenders of illegal pot use ever considered this?:

__We brag about and take pride for living in a nation that is ruled by laws, not by men! As such we do not have the right to decide for ourselves which laws are good and obey them, and which laws are bad and break them. Wen we do that, we are no longer ruled by laws - we are then ruled by men, contrary to the principles of a true Democracy.

[Vice President Joe] Biden would impeach Obama for unauthorized attack on Libya, his past statements conclude.

The attack on Libya is an act of war launched without congressional approval, a fact which President Obama denies on grounds that the Libyan offensive "is not an act of war."

Clearly, however, if a nation pummeled Washington D.C. with thousands of tomahawk missiles, wouldn't we consider it an act of war? If sending our military to bomb another nation is not an act of war, then nothing is.

Make no mistake, Obama's attack on Libya is an act of war which no manner of semantics or alternative perspectives can change.

As an act of war that it is, according to Vice President Biden (and Obama's past statements as well) it is an impeachable offense for a president to launch a major military offensive without Congressional approval.

The Internet is awash today with videos and transcripts of both Obama's and Biden's calls to impeach President Bush for unauthorized war offensive, which were made during the 2007 and 2008 presidential election campaigns.

In 2008, Biden [talking about a possible attack on Iran by Bush] told Chris Matthews on MSNBC Hardball that:

__I want to stand by that comment I made. The reason I made that comment is a warning. The reason, I don’t say those things lightly, Chris, you’ve known me for a long time. I was chairman of the Judiciary committee for 17 years or its ranking member. I teach separation of powers and constitutional law. This is something I know. So I got together and brought a group of Constitutional scholars together and write a piece I’m going to deliver to the whole United States Senate in pointing out the president has no Constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people unless we’re attacked, or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. If he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that– but I would lead an effort to impeach him. The reason for my doing that- I don’t say it lightly, I don’t say it lightly.

In 2007 Obama said:

__The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

I have been a longtime fan of Willie Nelson but I have never condoned his use of marijuana. Willie not only uses pot, he flaunts his use. He’s been busted numerous times for possession of pot and always treated with kid gloves.

Last November, Willie was rolling along I10 when he had to stop at the border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, southeast of El Paso. There, cops found several ounces of pot on Willie’s tour bus. The case is now being resolved. According to BigBendNow.com, the Hudspeth County attorney is offering Willie a ‘musical’ plea bargain. “I’m gonna let him plead, pay a small fine and he’s gotta sing ‘Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain’ with his guitar right there in the courtroom.”

When Bramblett and the judge agree to let Willie off if he will sing to the judge, they are making a mockery of justice!

If this were Willie’s first, second or even third pot bust, I would reluctantly accept a sweetheart plea deal. But this is the umpteenth time Willie has been caught with pot. And every time he's caught, it's with several ounces, not with just a couple of joints. He’s even openly smoked it on stage during several of his concerts. Isn’t it way past due for prosecutors to pull the plug on Willie’s pot escapades?

Of course, the problem is that we have a two-tiered justice system. There is justice for the rich and famous who can afford the best attorneys that money can buy and there is justice for the poor slobs who have neither fame nor fortune and who cannot afford an attorney.

And among the Hollywood and music celebrities there is what’s come to be known as celebrity justice. Bad behavior is rewarded with leniency time after time. Just look at the special treatment Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen have received.

And then there is Lindsay Lohan, the Queen of Bad Behavior! Until she was caught committing a felony theft when she walked out of a store with an expensive piece of jewelry – not her first theft – Lohan has been rewarded instead of punished for driving drunk, being doped up and violating probation.

Prosecutors who are offering celebrities sweetheart deals for bad behavior are making a mockery out of justice. Meanwhile, any poor slob who did what Willie Nelson and Lohan have done, would have been looking at some serious jail time.

EDITOR’S NOTE. I know that many, if not most people believe the laws against marijuana are bad laws. But we brag about and take pride for living in a nation that is ruled by law, not by men! As such we do not have the right to decide for ourselves which laws are good and obey them, and which laws are bad and break them. Wen we do that, we are no longer ruled by law, we are then ruled by men.

It really doesn’t make a lot of sense switching time back and forth every year.

RUSSIA SWITCHING TO PERMANENT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

The Straits TimesMarch 26, 2011

MOSCOW - RUSSIANS will be permanently on daylight savings time when they set their clocks ahead one hour early on Sunday under a decree from President Dmitry Medvedev.

Mr Medvedev, who has already tinkered with time by reducing the number of the vast country's time zones to nine from 11, has said switching clocks back and forth is bad for health.

Scientific studies show more suicides and heart attacks occur immediately after a shift to daylight savings time, and that switching clocks back and forth causes more pollution.

Russia has been grappling for decades with issues of time in a country that stretches across 10,000km and whose northernmost reaches see less than an hour of sunlight a day during the winter months.

A Kremlin handout earlier this year, citing experts, said that depending on the region, the change would increase the amount of perceived daylight by between seven and 17 per cent.

Russia's abolition of winter time will, however, boost annual electricity consumption by 1 billion kw/h, or 0.01 per cent of total usage, the Kremlin handout read, because mornings will be darker and people will need to use more energy. -- REUTERS

I cannot conceive of some low level ATF agents taking it upon themselves to allow the passage of guns to Mexico without the knowledge and approval of higher-ups, way way higher up!

TEXAS ON THE POTOMACObama says he didn’t inform Mexico of U.S. gun smuggling operation because he didn’t know about it

by Richard Dunham, Washington Bureau Chief

mySAMarch 24, 2011

Under fire for an operation that allowed smuggling of U.S. weapons across the nation’s border with Mexico, President Obama said in an interview that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the controversial “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The Mexican government has complained that it didn’t know about the U.S. operation that allowed guns to illegally cross the southwestern border so they could track the weapons.

Obama told Univision‘s Jorge Ramos that President Felipe Calderon wasn’t informed of the operation because he — the president of the United States — wasn’t informed either. When asked whether he knew of the weapon smuggling plan, Obama responded that it is “a pretty big government” with “a lot of moving parts.”

The investigation into the program comes after it was connected to two weapons that were found at the scene of a border shootout that killed U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December. Likewise, a gun smuggled from the U.S. were used to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Jamie Zapata, but it has not been determined if it was part of “Fast and Furious.”

When President Calderon came to visit Washington recently, the two presidents came together on a policy to stop drug and weapon smuggling across the border.

“Our policy is to ram up the interdiction of guns flowing south because that’s contributing to some of the security problems that are taking place in Mexico and what we’re doing is trying to build the kind of cooperation between Mexico and the United States that we haven’t seen before,” Obama told Univision.

The president said his attorney general has been “very clear that our policy is to catch gunrunners and put them into jail.”

The controversial operation was the subject of a CBS News Investigation that reported ATF was allowing traffickers to bring weapons into Mexico in order to track them rather than arresting the traffickers. Obama said Holder has assigned an inspector general to investigate what happened, because he does not know who authorized the operation.

“Letting guns ‘walk’ is not something that is acceptable,” Holder said during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. “Guns are different than drugs or money when we are trying to follow their trail. That is not acceptable.”

Having arrived at the Gates of Heaven, Barack Obama meets a man with a beard. 'Are you Mohammed?' he asks. 'No my son, I am St. Peter; Mohammed is higher up.' Peter then points to a ladder that rises into the clouds.

Delighted that Mohammed should be higher than St. Peter, Obama climbs the ladder in great strides, climbs up through the clouds and comes into a room where he meets another bearded man. He asks again, 'Are you Mohammed?' 'Why no he answers, I am Moses; Mohammed is higher still.'

Exhausted, but with a heart full of joy he climbs the ladder yet again, he discovers a larger room where he meets an angelic looking man with a beard. Full of hope, he asks again, 'Are you Mohammed?' 'No, I am Jesus, the Christ...you will find Mohammed higher up.'

Mohammed higher than Jesus! Man, oh man! Obama can hardly contain his delight and climbs and climbs ever higher. Once again, he reaches an even larger room where he meets this truly magnificent looking man with a silver white beard and once again repeats his question. ‘Are you Mohammed?’ he gasps as he is by now, totally out of breath from all his climbing.

'No, my son.... I am Almighty God, but you look exhausted. Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Obama says, ‘Yes please.’

Saturday, March 26, 2011

When the rockets from Gaza start falling on Tel Aviv, the IDF will re-invade the Gaza Strip. Then the Palestinians and the international community will have a field day condemning the Jewish state for conducting a brutal assault on innocent civilians.

GAZA MISSILES INCH CLOSER TO TEL AVIVBy Ryan Jones

Israel TodayMarch 24, 2011

Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists again escalated their confrontation with Israel on Thursday when they fired foreign-built missiles at towns just 10 miles south of the heavily-populated Tel Aviv metropolitan region.

Eight missiles fired from Gaza landed in or near the port city of Ashdod and a number of central Israel towns, including Rishon Lezion and Yavne.

Israeli responded with tank fire into Gaza. A Hamas facility in Gaza City was destroyed by the retaliatory barrage. Israeli aircraft also attacked terrorist cells attempting to launch additional missiles into Israel.

Thursday’s back-and-forth was a continuation of the escalating war between southern Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza. The situation began to spiral out of control over the weekend, when Hamas-allied terrorists fired more than 50 mortar shells and rockets into southern Israel.

Israel has responded hard to the provocative attacks. Israeli retaliatory strikes on Tuesday killed nine Palestinians, including four civilians, whom the terrorists were using as a human shield. Many others were wounded.

In a demonstration proving that it is not Israel’s intent to harm Palestinian civilians, an eight-year-old Gaza boy wounded in Tuesday’s exchange was rushed to an Israeli hospital for emergency treatment.

Some of the fire and brimstone sermons I’ve listened to would drive me to drink, not to eat.

NOW GOING TO CHURCH CAN MAKE YOU FAT, EXPERTS WARNRegular worshippers are 50% more likely to be obese by middle age

Mail OnlineMarch 25, 2011

Going to church may be good for a person's soul - but it is not so beneficial for their waistline, it has been claimed.

U.S. researchers say Sunday worship can be just bad for your health as burgers and chips.

Experts at a Chicago university found those who worship regularly were 50 per cent more likely to be obese by middle age compared to non-religious people.

They are not quite sure why, though some say that because eating during church services has traditionally been allowed, worshippers were inclined to munch their way through the sermon.

The study into obesity and churchgoing was led by Matthew Feinstein, a fourth-year student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

It looked at the lives of 2,433 people in Chicago, Minneapolis, Birmingham, Alabama and Oakland, California.

He said: 'We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot of these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention.

'It’s possible that getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight and obesity.'

Some church-goers believe there might be a historical link between tucking into too many burgers and praising the Lord.

Courtney Parker, the catering manager for the 20,000-member Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, told the Sun Times, in the past, church services were long and eating was one of the few things that was not taboo.

He added: 'So the first thing you do is go eat, and then you go to sleep.'

It's not all doom and waist-line gloom though. Mr Feinstein said regular churchgoers smoked less on the whole, lived longer and had a better mental health than those who do not go to church.

Damn near everything on our country’s store shelves is made in China. I was at Fry’s Electronics the other day and was told that all major brand TV sets are now made in China. Some Chinese products are well made, but quite a few are crappy. And some have been found to be dangerous. Then there are the piss-poor working conditions at many Chinese plants. Not only that, but they are notable for polluting the environment. Here is a case in point:

CHINA BATTERY PLANT POISONS MORE THAN 100 VILLAGERS

The Straits TimesMarch 25, 2011

BEIJING - LEAD emissions from a battery plant in eastern China have poisoned more than 100 villagers, including 35 children, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday, the latest in a string of heavy metal pollution cases in the country.

A total of 139 villagers in a village near Taizhou city in coastal Zhejiang province have been found to have elevated lead levels in their blood, Xinhua cited the provincial health department as saying in a statement.

Three of the adults had lead in their blood more than three times the safe limit for humans, the report added, though nobody was found to be suffering from severe lead poisoning.

Officials blamed a nearby battery plant.

'An inspection of the battery plant showed that lead readings in gas and water discharged from the plant exceeded the legal limit, which also resulted in excessive lead in the earth nearby,' it quoted local environment official Jiang Xincai as saying.

Villagers are being advised to avoid eating food grown in the area as the lead had likely contaminated groundwater, Xinhua said. -- REUTERS

What a shame that the Republican base and some religious groups are so strongly opposed to human cell stem research.

NEW STEM CELL STUDY PROMISES TO HEAL THE HEARTBy Fred Tasker

Jewish World ReviewMarch 25, 2011

University of Miami cardiologists are reporting success in a small, preliminary human clinical trial of a new stem cell therapy they hope some day will routinely mend human hearts and reduce the need for lifelong medication, even for transplants.

"That's the Holy Grail, the quest the whole field has been pursuing for close to a decade, and this is evidence we're on the right track," said Dr. Joshua Hare, director of the University of Miami Medical School's Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. He's lead author of the study that appears in Thursday's peer-reviewed Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Max Eaton, the 68-year-old direct-buy franchise owner who was patient No.1 in the eight-person trial, said Wednesday he's thankful he was part of the trial, adding that he had just completed a 2.8-mile, 41-minute walk around his neighborhood in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla.

"I feel very grateful," he said. "Almost certainly, I would be deceased or in much worse shape had I not had the opportunity to be in this program."

Hare stressed that the current trial is only a small, run-up phase of extensive testing that will take up to five years and involve dozens of hospitals and hundreds of patients before winning U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for routine use.

The trial was primarily about the safety of the procedure, and all eight patients came through without significant side effects, he said. The procedure also reduced the size of hearts swollen by previous heart attacks, a condition called cardiomyopathy or simply heart failure.

The reduction was up to 25 percent, while current therapies including medication and pacemakers typically reduce the size by only about 5 percent, he said. The reduction in swelling increases the heart's ability to pump blood, he said. By implication, it almost certainly improves the patient's health, although that was not directly measured in the small, early study.

In the study, stem cells were taken from the patient's own bone marrow and injected by catheter into scar tissue in the patient's heart caused by an earlier heart attack. It worked in patients such as Eaton, whose heart attack was 11 years ago, Hare said. The hope was that the immature adult stem cells would turn into heart muscle, replacing the scar tissue.

The study shed new light on a question of prime interest to cardiologists: whether the injected stem cells actually transformed themselves into heart muscle, or improved heart function in some other way.

Some of the stem cells did become heart muscle, Hare said; they also triggered the heart to produce more of its own stem cells which became new heart muscle as well, he said.

The next step is two more near-term studies. The first, which started in 2009, is a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 60 patients designed further to test the safety of the procedure, but primarily its efficacy, or how well it works.

Another study about to get underway will see whether bone marrow from a donor can work as well as the patient's own bone marrow.

Later, researchers will conduct a study involving 50 to 100 hospitals and many hundreds of patients aimed at winning final FDA approval.

At the nature center where I volunteer, we always have some people doing the community service work they have been ordered to do by the courts.

On Thursday, a nice looking young man showed up with an Arabic name who had been ordered to do 80 hours after having been convicted of tampering with a government document.

He preferred to be called ‘Sam’ because one of his names was ‘Osama.’ I decided to have a little fun with Sam.

I asked: Sam, you’re not Jewish, are you?

Sam replied: No, no!

I said: That’s good because we don’t allow any Jews here.

Sam said: That’s good! I’m on your side.

Later I saw Sam while he was digging a hole in the ground for an underground electric line junction box. Sam smiled and asked me: Are you Jewish? When I replied that I was, he said: That’s funny because I’m a Palestinian.

Later Dave, one of the other volunteers, decided to have a little fun with me. He asked me to write down my home address for him so he could give it to Sam. Dave said: I’m sure Sam will want to visit your house some night soon.

Friday, March 25, 2011

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has ordered officers manning sobriety checkpoints not to impound the vehicles of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive. But, adding insult to injury, if the unlicensed drivers are United States citizens or lawful residents, Beck has ordered his officers to impound their cars for 30 days, as authorized by California law.

Bienvenido a Kookfornia!

IMPOUNDS AND ILLEGALSBy Jack Dunphy

Pajamas MediaMarch 23, 2011

Anyone surprised by this hasn’t been paying attention.

Los Angeles Police Department officers manning sobriety checkpoints will no longer, as a matter of department policy, impound cars driven by unlicensed drivers. That is unless the unlicensed driver is a United States citizen or lawful resident, in which case he can say adios to his car for 30 days, as authorized by California law.

I can see you out there shaking your heads and saying, “Wait a minute . . . .” Yes, you read it correctly: Two drivers are stopped at a sobriety checkpoint in Los Angeles and both are found to be sober, but lacking a driver’s license. The first, a U.S. citizen, receives a citation and stands by and watches as his car is towed away to the impound yard, where it will remain for a month so as to impress upon him that driving is a privilege, not a right, and that the people of the state of California extend that privilege only to those who have demonstrated some minimal level of proficiency as signified by possession of a driver’s license.

The second unlicensed driver, an illegal immigrant from, let’s just say Mexico, is also issued a citation, but he is given a “reasonable period of time” to give custody of his car to a licensed driver, who will presumably drive it to the unlicensed driver’s home — or just around the corner and out of the cops’ view — where the unlicensed driver will be free to jump back behind the wheel and ply the roadways until he has the misfortune of running into another one of those bothersome sobriety checkpoints, where the process can begin anew. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The change in policy was announced last week by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who called it a question of “fairness.” “I’m tired of casting the net so wide,” Beck told reporters. “This is the right thing to do. There is a fairness issue here … and we’re trying to balance the needs of all segments of our community and keep the roads safe.”

Yes, we must balance the needs of all segments of our community, including those that rightfully ought to be segments of some other community in some other country.And it got worse. From a Los Angeles Times story that ran on March 12:

__ The new rules, Beck said, were an attempt to mitigate somewhat “the current reality, which is that for a vast number of people, who are a valuable asset to our community and who have very limited resources, their ability to live and work in L.A. is severely limited by their immigration status.”

Do you see? The chief thinks that illegal immigrants’ ability to live and work in Los Angeles is too “severely limited,” so he now enlists his officers in the cause of easing those limitations. Thus illegal immigrants in Los Angeles have achieved through Chief Beck’s sense of “fairness” what they could not through legislation. Almost six years ago I reported, over at National Review Online, on the efforts by then-California State Senator Gil Cedillo to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and to exempt them — and only them — from the provisions of the California Vehicle Code that authorize police officers to impound cars driven by unlicensed drivers. Cedillo failed to see his signature legislation enacted, but he must be pleased to see one of his goals realized through Beck’s policy decision. (Cedillo was term-limited out of the state senate last year but, displaying the tenacity unique to Democrat politicians, continues to pursue his immigrant-friendly agenda from a seat in the state assembly.)

And Chief Beck wasn’t being hyperbolic when he referred to illegal immigrants being a “vast number of people” in Los Angeles. I once attended a meeting at which Beck was asked why he had spoken out against Arizona’s then-pending S.B. 1070. “I was asked to,” he said. And he went on to say that if a similar law were to pass in California (as unlikely a contingency as can be imagined), LAPD officers “would be doing nothing else” but dealing with immigration issues. And why would this be so? “Because,” he said,” there are 600,000 illegal immigrants living in Los Angeles.” That would be 15 percent of the city’s 4 million residents.

He didn’t cite his source for that figure but it doesn’t strike me as an exaggeration. Indeed the Census Bureau reports that in a single zip code near downtown Los Angeles, 70 percent of the 21,000 residents are foreign born. And these are the people, as we are constantly reminded, who are “living in the shadows.” But from within those shadows, they and their enablers are able to influence a policy decision by the chief of police in the second largest city in America. Living in the shadows? More like casting a very long one.

I’ll admit that on occasion I’ve stopped an unlicensed driver and let him go without impounding his car. I’m not about to turn a carload of children out on the street when their parent seems to be an otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrant. But there is a difference between a cop on the beat cutting someone a break and the city’s police chief coming out and saying that state law is too great an imposition on illegal immigrants, then directing his officers to ignore it.

According to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 20 percent of fatal traffic accidents in the United States involve at least one unlicensed driver, and accidents involving unlicensed drivers are more than twice as likely to cause a fatality. It is only a matter of time before some beneficiary of Chief Beck’s new policy kills someone with a car that could have been impounded. I’ll be curious to hear his thoughts on “fairness” then.

A political analyst says that Mexican President Calderon "finally achieved what he wanted: kill the messenger."

OUSTER OF U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO CONTINUES TO REVERBERATEBy: Cecilia Sanchez

The Los Angeles TimesMarch 23, 2011

Several days have passed since the U.S. government announced it was removing Carlos Pascual, its ambassador in Mexico City, and still the tongues are wagging.

Pascual fell victim in part to WikiLeaks' disclosures of secret diplomatic cables thatoffered frank if uncomfortable assessments of how the Mexican government was waging its drug war. In the cables, Pascual or his staff described Mexico's army as "risk averse" and government security services as being hampered by internal squabling. One described the ruling party's uninspiring candidates for major offices.

President Felipe Calderon, furious, said during a recent trip to Washington that it would be hard to work with Pascual, and over this past weekend, the ambassador was out.

Mexico's three major political parties basically said good riddance, demanding that the next ambassador be more respectful (video in Spanish). Calderon's office and the Foreign Ministry hastened to say that bilateral relations remained strong.

But political commentators and columnists had a slightly different take.

Calderon "finally achieved what he wanted: kill the messenger," wrote Denise Dresser in Reforma (link in Spanish, registration required).

"Obtain the resignation of Carlos Pascual for having made the president uncomfortable by pointing out the negative consequences of the war that he unleashed. ... For telling the truth although it hurts to recognize it. Truth that the president does not want to face...."

Pascual, a career diplomat considered to possess a keen intellect, arrived in Mexico in the middle of 2009. He was highly visible and active from the start, and is widely credited with tightening security and intelligence cooperation between the two countries. And sometimes his public comments, like the private ones, stung.

It didn't help Pascual's case that he was also very publicly dating the daughter of a prominent opposition politician. They popped up on occasion in the society pages, and the politician, Francisco Rojas, was among a small group invited to the ambassador's residence for a Thanksgiving celebration, according to people who were present.

The overheated response to Rep. Peter King's hearings on the threat from Islamist extremism has now officially gone over the top. In an astonishing decision, the Justice Department has decided to argue that a Muslim school teacher had the right to demand a 3-week vacation in the middle of a school year in order to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. It's difficult to figure the reasoning behind the federal government's move to treat an individual's decision to make the hadj a constitutional right but, as an article in the Washington Post points out, this may have more to do with the Obama administration's campaign to reach out to Muslims than it does with the law.

The facts of the case as presented make Attorney General Eric Holder's decision hard to understand. The teacher, a woman named Safoorah Kahn, who taught math at a middle school in Berkley, Illinois, had only been on the job for nine months when she presented her supervisors with a demand for three weeks off in order to go to Mecca. The right to take this kind of leave during the time the school was in session was not part of her employment agreement or the teachers-union contract. While making the pilgrimage is a requirement of the Muslim faith, it is one that can be fulfilled by going once during one's lifetime. Had Ms. Kahn been willing to wait eight years until the time for the annual hadj set by the Muslim religious calendar fell during school vacation there would have been no problem. But she was not willing to wait. She demanded the time off immediately and when the school refused her unprecedented request, she went anyway and was, not surprisingly, dismissed.

While the law requires employers to make reasonable accommodation for their employees' religious observances, there was nothing reasonable about Kahn's demand. This is not a case of an employee being denied the right to take off from work on a religious holiday, or the Sabbath, or of wanting to wear religiously required distinctive clothing or headgear. The refusal to give a new employee this sort of lengthy leave of absence was not a matter of religious discrimination because what she was asking was not the right to observe her faith but the satisfaction of a whim that would have put her school and her students at a disadvantage.

Nevertheless, Kahn lodged a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and, last year, the commission found cause for discrimination and referred the case to the Justice Department. Justice lawyers filed a suit on behalf of Kahn in federal court in December.

But as Hans von Spakovsky, a Justice Department civil rights official in the Bush administration, told the Post, "No jury anywhere would think that a teacher leaving for three weeks during a crucial time at the end of a semester is reasonable. This is a political lawsuit to placate Muslims."

Indeed, the effort to re-interpret the law in this manner seems to be about the administration sending a message that Muslims will be defended by the government, even when, as in this case, they are not being subjected to discrimination.

Since the 9/11 attacks, American Muslim groups have been desperate to sell the country on the idea that they are being persecuted even though there is no evidence that they were subjected to a backlash. Part of this campaign has been an effort to suppress government investigations into Muslim involvement in terror cases. But, as was the case with plans to build an Islamic center and mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero in Manhattan, what seems to be going on is not so much an effort to fight bias as to assert the Muslim community's political power.

Far from being another milestone in the battle against religious discrimination, the Kahn case is a signal that the administration is willing to do battle on behalf of American Muslims, even when there is no compelling legal rationale for them to do so.

I wonder if Obama and his Israel-hating advisers, Susan Rice and Samantha Power, are major stockholders in Egypt Air?

EGYPT AIR REMOVES ISRAEL FROM MAPJordan stretches to sea in online map by Egypt's largest airline, though it continues to fly to Israel

By Yoav Zitun

Ynetnews.comMarch 23, 2011

Egypt Air, the largest airline in Egypt, has removed Israel from the map – literally. On its website, Ynet has learned, Jordan's land reaches the Mediterranean Sea.

The airline's subsidiary, Air Sinai, flies to Israel regularly, but customers seeking flights to Ben Gurion National Airport will have a hard time finding them. On the map are the names of the Mideast capitals – Amman, Beirut, and Damascus – but Israel is nowhere to be found.

Egypt Air is the first large airline to have omitted the state from its map of destinations. Other airlines based in Muslim countries, such as Turkish Airlines and Royal Jordanian, include Israel and Tel Aviv on its maps.

The omission is especially odd seeing as the company continues to fly to Israel four times a week. Cairo-Tel Aviv flights were temporarily halted following the recent uprising that overturned the government, but were then reinstated.

There has also been an increase in passengers on Air Sinai's flights. According to the Airports Authority, the airline saw an increase of 27% in 2010 from the year previous.

_You have two cows._Your neighbor has none. _You feel guilty for being successful. _You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.

REPUBLICAN

_You have two cows. _Your neighbor has none._So?

SOCIALISM

_You have two cows._The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. _You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNISM

_You have two cows._The government seizes both and provides you with milk. _You wait in line for hours to get it._It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

_You have two cows._You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

_You have two cows._Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pour the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION

_You have two cows._You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. _You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. _You are surprised when one cow drops dead. _You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. _Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION

_You have two cows._You go on strike because you want three cows. _You go to lunch and drink wine._Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION

_You have two cows._You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. _They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains._Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION

_You have two cows. _You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. _Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION

_You have two cows but you don't know where they are. _You break for lunch._Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION

_You have two cows._You drink some vodka._You count them and learn you have five cows. _You drink some more vodka._You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. _The Russian Mafia shows up and takes over all cows you really have.

IRAQI CORPORATION

_You have two cows._They go into hiding. _They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION

_You have two bulls._Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION

_You have one cow._The cow is schizophrenic._Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish. _The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow._The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. _The cow asks permission to be cut in half._The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION

_You have a black cow and a brown cow._Everyone votes for the best looking one. _Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one._Some people vote for both._Some people vote for neither._Some people can't figure out how to vote at all._Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

_You have millions of cows. _They make real California cheese. _Only five speak English._Most are illegal._Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

The TALIBAN

_You have all the cows in Afghanistan . Exactly two. _You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts._You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The possession of cell phones by prison inmates in this country has reached epidemic proportions. The smuggling of cell phones into prisons cannot be dealt with until the prisons can jam all cell phone calls and the penalties for smuggling them to inmates and their possession by inmates are made felonies.

STATE LAWMAKERS UP THE STAKES IN BATTLE OVER PRISON CELL PHONESBy Michael Montgomery

California WatchMarch 22, 2011

State lawmakers are making another push to get rid of contraband cell phones in prisons at a time when corrections officials describe the situation as “untenable” and a major threat to public safety.

The Senate Public Safety Committee today will discuss a bill – known as SB 26 – that would impose criminal penalties on inmates who use cell phones, and others, including staff and guards who smuggle the devices into prisons.

Despite a ban, some 10,000 smuggled cell phones were confiscated in California prisons last year – either directly from inmates or abandoned. In addition, 271 cell phones were seized from prison staff as part of a program of random, monthly searches known as “Operation Disconnect,” according to data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In some cases gang leaders behind bars have used the devices to direct drug deals and even order murders outside prison, according to federal indictments.

A previous version of the Senate bill was vetoed last year by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who dismissed it as ineffective.

"While signing this measure might be better than nothing, I cannot sign a measure that does so little," he said in his veto message. "Signing (it) would mean that smuggling a can of beer into a prison carries with it a greater punishment than delivering a cell phone to the leader of a criminal street gang.”

Schwarzenegger called for cell phone possession by inmates to be treated as a felony.

Under the current bill, inmates would lose nonrestorable time credits, which could lengthen their prison terms by weeks or months. An inmate caught using a cell phone to facilitate a crime would face a sentence enhancement ranging from two to five years.

Visitors who smuggle cell phones to inmates would face penalties of up to $5,000 and six months in jail while prison employees would be punished only with fines.

Despite previous vetoes, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-San Fernando Valley, predicted the current bill would get friendlier treatment in the new governor’s office.

“I think Gov. Brown, having served as attorney general of the state of California, being very familiar with prison gangs and prison gang activity, can appreciate the threat that cell phones in the hands of inmates present to public safety,” he said.

At the same time, corrections officials say they’ve been successful in testing devices that detect and block unauthorized cell phone transmissions in prisons.

In a recent pilot program at an undisclosed prison, officials intercepted 4,000 transmissions from 480 unauthorized cell phones in a 24-hour period.

Despite making LA a sanctuary city, the Latinos still want nothing to do with the police.

SILENCE, FEAR AFTER 15-YEAR OLD GIRL IS SHOT TO DEATHBy Benjamin Gottlieb and Mary Slosson

Los Angeles TimesMarch 22, 2011

Fifteen-year-old Saray Rivas was shot and killed in a part of Los Angeles where residents are afraid to talk, where silence eats up questions about immigration status, gang violence and even murder.

Saray lay in a pool of her own blood for more than 12 hours after being shot in an Arlington Heights apartment because nobody wanted the police around asking questions, witnesses said.

When police did come, they were met with silence.

LAPD homicide Detective John Jamison said a 17-year-old Latina "basically confessed" on Feb. 21 and was arrested in connection with the killing. Her name was not released because she is a juvenile. Jamison said she is a resident of Los Angeles.

"Once the shooting occurred, everybody left the location," Jamison said.

The apartment, at 1307 3rd Ave., was rented to a woman who "wasn’t home when the shooting occurred inside her apartment," Jamison said.

The known facts, provided by the Los Angeles County coroner, are few: Rivas was shot in the left eye with a small-caliber gun. The bullet exited through the back of her head.

Saray’s body was discovered by the renter of the apartment, Maria Elena, and her 18-year-old son. They walked to the nearby station to report the crime. Emergency workers forced open the locked door of the rundown 1970s-era apartment complex and found Rivas’ body on the floor. No one was in the second-story apartment.

Police detained Elena's son, Thomas, for questioning and kept him in custody for 48 hours before he was released without charges, Jamison said.

Although officials suspect that gang members are involved in the incident, Jamison said he would not label the crime "gang-related."

“It was kind of a party,” although at the time of the shooting only three girls were inside of the apartment, Jamison said.

"Based on interviews in the investigation, I don’t think that it was an accident," he added.

Several witnesses say that the shooting happened around 3 p.m. on Feb. 19., but police say they believe Saray was shot the following afternoon.

Residents who said they witnessed the aftermath of Rivas’ death spoke to reporters on the condition that they not be named, saying they feared retribution.

“[The police] came and had a lot of questions. They asked who was living in the apartment, they asked for the papers of everybody who lived there,” recalled the superintendent of the complex. “And another question, ‘Did anybody know what happened?' Everybody said, 'No no, no.' ”

Witnesses said no one knew anything about the victim. Neither did Los Angeles Unified School District officials, who said they had no record of her attending school for the last two years.

One tenant noted that the building’s one-room apartments are not insulated.

"You can hear everything in this building," he said. “So, of course people heard it. It’s just that no one wants to talk. No one wants to be targeted."

The owner of a nearby business, who also asked not to be identified, said the area is normally tranquil. She says she often works until 3 a.m. and then walks the three blocks to her home alone. Outside of people from other neighborhoods tagging nearby buildings with graffiti, she said, she had never spotted trouble before.

However, another resident of the complex says a gang, the Harpies, controls the block on which the slaying happened.

The next block? Controlled by the Crazy Riders. A few more blocks, and Mara Salvatrucha territory begins.

“I just feel bad for the girl," Elena said in a phone interview. "I want to move on. I don’t want to think about it.”

Implausible as it may seem, as long as the Obama administration with its trusted Israel-hating female advisers remains in power, anything is possible.

THE GADHAFI PRECEDENT: COULD ATTACK ON LIBYA SET THE STAGE FOR ACTION AGAINST ISRAEL? By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Jewish World ReviewMarch 22, 2011

There are many reasons to be worried about the bridge-leap the Obama administration has just undertaken in its war with Col. Moammar Gadhafi. How it will all end is just one of them.

Particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Gadhafi precedent will be used in the not-too-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.

Here's how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate:

It begins with the Palestinian Authority seeking a United Nations Security Council resolution that would recognize its unilateral declaration of statehood. Three top female officials in the Obama administration reprise roles they played in the council's recent action on Libya: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, a vehement critic of Israel, urges that the United States support (or at least not veto) the Palestinians' gambit. She is supported by the senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, Samantha Power, who in the past argued for landing a "mammoth force" of American troops to protect the Palestinians from Israel. Ditto Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose unalloyed sympathy for the Palestinian cause dates back at least to her days as first lady.

This resolution enjoys the support of the other four veto-wielding Security Council members - Russia, China, Britain and France - as well as all of the other nonpermanent members except India, which joins the United States in abstaining. As a result, it is adopted with overwhelming support from what is known as the "international community."

With a stroke of the U.N.'s collective pen, substantial numbers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli citizens find themselves on the wrong side of internationally recognized borders. The Palestinian Authority (PA) insists on its long-standing position: The sovereign territory of Palestine must be rid of all Jews.

The Israeli government refuses to evacuate the oft-condemned "settlements" now on Palestinian land or to remove the IDF personnel, checkpoints and facilities rightly seen as vital to protecting their inhabitants and, for that matter, the Jewish state itself.

Hamas and Fatah bury the hatchet (temporarily), forging a united front and promising democratic elections in the new Palestine. There, as in Gaza - and probably elsewhere in the wake of the so-called "Arab awakening" - the winner likely will be the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Palestinian franchise is Hamas.

The unified Palestinian proto-government then seeks international help to "liberate" its land. As with the Gadhafi precedent, the first to act is the Arab League. Its members unanimously endorse the use of force to protect the "Palestinian people" and end the occupation of the West Bank by the Israelis.

Turkey, which is still a NATO ally despite its ever-more-aggressive embrace of Islamism, is joined by Britain and France - two European nations increasingly hostile to Israel - in applauding this initiative in the interest of promoting "peace." They call on the U.N. Security Council to authorize such steps as might be necessary to enforce the Arab League's bidding.

Once again, Team Obama's leading ladies - Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Power and Ms. Rice - align to support the "will of the international community." They exemplify and are prepared to enforce the president's willingness to subordinate U.S. sovereignty to the dictates of transnationalism and his personal hostility toward Israel. The concerns of Mr. Obama's political advisers about alienating Jewish voters on the eve of the 2012 election are trumped by presidential sympathy for the Palestinian right to a homeland.

Accordingly, hard as it may be to believe given the United States' long-standing role as Israel's principal ally and protector, Mr. Obama acts in accordance with the Gadhafi precedent. He warns Israel that it must take steps immediately to dismantle its unwanted presence inside the internationally recognized state of Palestine lest it face the sort of U.S.- enabled "coalition" military measures now under way in Libya. In this case, they would be aimed at neutralizing IDF forces on the West Bank - and beyond, if necessary - in order to fulfill the "will of the international community."

Of course, such steps would not result in the ostensibly desired endgame, namely "two states living side by side in peace and security." If the current attack on Libya entails the distinct possibility of unintended (or at least unforeseen) consequences, application of the Gadhafi precedent to Israel seems certain to produce a very different outcome from the two-state "solution": Under present and foreseeable circumstances, it will unleash a new regional war, with possible worldwide repercussions.

At the moment, it seems unlikely that the first application in Libya of the Gadhafi precedent will have results consistent with U.S. interests. Even if a positive outcome somehow is forthcoming there, should Mr. Obama and his anti-Israel troika of female advisers be allowed, based on that precedent, to realize the foregoing hypothetical scenario, they surely would precipitate a new international conflagration, one fraught with truly horrific repercussions - for Israel, the United States and freedom-loving people elsewhere.

A Congress that was effectively sidelined by Team Obama in the current crisis had better engage fully, decisively and quickly if it is to head off such a disastrous reprise.

The PAL was believed to be hiding in the house when the cops showed up on Tuesday with a search warrant. The occupants denied the wanted man was present.

The cops sent a couple of K-9s into the attic and much to the residents’ amazement (gag gag cough cough) the parolee suddenly came crashing through the drywall attic floor, falling almost 20 feet to the ground floor, suffering from at least one bite wound and some injuries from the fall.

The parolee was given medical attention then taken to the county residential hospitality center (aka Jail).

Think a gallon of gas is expensive? This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective. Compared with Gasoline......

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29 ... $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19..........$9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 ..... $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 .........$10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 ...... $33.60 Per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 ... $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 .. $123..20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 ..... $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 .....$84.48 per gallon

Evian water 9 oz $1.49...$21.19 per gallon! $21.19 for WATER and the buyers don't even know the source. (Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)

And this is A REALKICKER: Ever wonder why printers are so cheap? So they have you hooked for the ink. Someone calculated the cost of the ink at....(you won't believe it....but it is true) $5,200 a gal. (five thousand two hundred dollars)

So, the next time you're at the pump, be glad your car doesn't run on water, Scope, Whiteout, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or God forbid, Printer Ink!

HOWEVER, THERE IS SOME ENCOURAGING NEWS:

Golfers get great mileage per gallon.

A recent study found the average golfer walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

At the onset of our attacks on Libya, President Obama was visiting Brazil and made this statement: "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy.....We are answering the calls of a threatened people”

How noble of Obama to declare that Moammar Gadhafi's continued assault on his own people left the U.S. and its international partners with no other choice. OK. Now what about the people of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria? The rulers of those countries are also acting as tyrants in applying an iron fist to put down the protests of their own people.

Gadhafi has been an avowed enemy of the U.S. for 40 years, but the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen are our allies. And we depend on Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to supply us with much of our oil. That means we have to stand idly by while the people of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen are shot at by their own government’s police and military.

What about President Assad of Syria? In putting down protests, his troops are killing many of his own people. He and his late father have done that many times before. That makes Assad as much of a tyrant as Gadhafi. But Assad has a strong military, not a weak one like Gadhafi’s. That means we have to stand idly by while this tyrant shows his people no mercy.

And what about the people in the African countries of Sudan and Zimbabwe? We’ve had no problem standing idly by while thousands of Sudanese and Zimbabweans are being slaughtered at the hands of the tyrants that rule them.